


Victoria's Secret

by TopHat



Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: Aborted Relationship, F/F, That's okay, bad memories, freaking out
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:42:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23235658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TopHat/pseuds/TopHat
Summary: The pun made me write this.
Relationships: Victoria Dallon | Glory Girl/Ashley Stillons | Damsel of Distress
Kudos: 25





	1. Chapter 1

“We should go in there first!” Kenzie exclaimed, stabbing her finger at the black and pink sign, coat hanging open now that they were out of the cold.  
  
Victoria followed the finger with her eyes, then sighed, undoing her own overly-elaborate buckles. “First, you’re too young. Second, you just want to make the pun. Third, more than half of our group wouldn’t have anything to do there.” Victoria nodded meaningfully towards Rain, Byron, and Sveta.  
  
“Yeah, a lingerie shop seems like not a great way to start this trip,” Rain said, shaking his head. “Can we pick a place where I’d feel like less of a creep? What about cinnamon rolls? I could go for something sweet and terrible for me right about now.”  
  
“A refill on paints and some new brushes would be nice,” Sveta said, fingers drumming against her thigh in a steady _click-click-click_. “But I really don’t have anything specific in mind. Do you guys have anything you’re dying to get before food?”  
  
“I will be taking a look at some of the dresses,” Ashley said, examine the coat of black paint on her nails. “Ideally before I eat something covered in sugared icing.”  
  
Byron shrugged. “I’d like to pick up some new books.”  
  
He flickered and Tristan took his place, who promptly shed his coat. “I’d like to check out some of the clothing shops. Mind if I go first, By? I know you like to linger over what you’re picking up.”  
  
After tying off his coat, Tristan flickered, becoming Byron. “Sounds good to me,” Byron replied, flickering again.  
  
As soon as the transformation was complete, Tristan promptly started walking toward the escalators, whistling something low and tuneless. Kenzie followed him shortly thereafter, but Victoria caught the tail end of a lingering gaze from Ashley.  
  
“If you really do want to buy something fancy, we can head in after Kenzie and the boys split off,” Victoria said quietly. “Not sure if Sveta will want to join, but we can offer.”  
  
For a moment Ashley didn’t react. Then she gave Victoria a short nod. “That would be acceptable.”  
  
Victoria took the agreement silently, letting a comfortable quiet settle between the two of them as they walked together.  
  
Then she cracked a smile. “Actually, maybe we should bring Rain and Erin with us,”  
  
Ashley rolled her eyes. “To what end? The boy ignored her waiting on his bed dressed in a transparent nightgown. A beautiful pattern and a more elaborate packaging would hardly make her more enticing than she already is.”  
  
“Some competition might inspire Erin to make herself a little more heard,” Victoria murmured, nodding at the girl in question. “I’d like for Rain to give her a hug, but if she has to hug him first that could also work.  
  
Ashley made a show of considering the thought, then shook her head, the new pixie cut _swishing_ around her face.  
  
“It was never a problem with assertiveness on either side,” she said quietly. “Erin sees something of value in him and wants to be closer to it. Rain does not wish for company and desires space to assemble himself. The two views are incompatible.”  
  
“That’s a grim diagnosis,” Victoria replied frankly, still gazing at the knot of people in front of her. Kenzie was riding on Tristan’s shoulders now, and when he flickered Byron staggered forward from the weight, drawing a laugh from Erin and Rain. “I mean, you’re not wrong. Rain’s not in a good place right now, and I don’t see him dating anyone anytime soon. On the other hand, people do change in response to other people. We change Erin as she works with us, Erin changes Rain as he works with her, and maybe everyone ends up better off.”  
  
“And you propose to change her by scandalizing him?” Ashley asked, a single eyebrow arching up as she turned to look at the other woman.  
  
“I’m proposing we change _him_ by scandalizing _her_ ,” Victoria amended, smirking. “And I think we’d only have to drop the suggestion, honestly. Insinuate that romance is on our minds, comment on how Rain is the only dateable boy in the group, and let the green-eyed monster work its magic.”  
  
Ashley clucked her tongue. “Making a girl jealous to inspire greater acts of devotion. Truly, you are a mastermind.”  
  
Victoria laughed, throwing her head back in simple joy. “Oh, how nefarious. You’ve discovered my plot. Now that you know, Swansong,” she said, voice dropping low and a playful grin spreading across her face, “What do you intend to do about it?”  
  
Ashley smiled. “Complete victory.”  
  


* * *

  
  
The first to leave was Erin and Rain. They lived the farthest away, and said goodbye with only a bad each. The next was Kenzie, who took with her Tristan and Byron, who didn’t want her to wander back to the base alone. Sveta was the last to go, apologizing profusely even as she tapped furiously at the screen of her phone and promised to make it up to them.  
  
Victoria waved a hand dismissively. “Your boyfriend is back, go give him a hug for me.”  
  
“I would deign to offer a condescending nod if you could spare one,” Ashley said, admiring her new coat. “I feel as if he would appreciate the gesture.”  
  
“I’ll tell him you said that!” Sveta shouted, running off towards the mall’s exit. “Those exact words!”  
  
“I would be disappointed with anything less!” Ashley shouted back, still maintaining her composure. The two of them watched her recede down the mall’s main floor until she was indistinguishable from the crowds. As one, they turned to look at each other.  
  
“Are we actually doing this?” Victoria asked, voice a little shaky.  
  
Ashley nodded, standing up. “I follow through on what I plan. Though you may wait outside should the experience seem unappealing.”  
  
“No, no.” Victoria shook her head, blonde hair hiding her face as she leaned forward. “It’s just.” She motioned at her body. “Things.”  
  
Ashley didn’t comment as they walked back to the black and pink shop. A sales woman nodded once as they passed her and began browsing. The mannequins, the shelves, the tables covered with delicate color-coded fabric, it all summoned up an unusually solemn aura. It was not a bad feeling but a serious one, where the uncertain was being explored with the caution it deserved.  
  
“I’m going to try these on,” Victoria said, holding up a pair of white bras, one plain and one floral. “Pretty sure I got the right size, but it pays to double check.”  
  
“I would like to examine a few more items.” Ashley cast her eyes across the store, locking on to a display with a floral nightgown. “Of late I’ve found myself lacking in quality sleepwear.”  
  
Victoria nodded, turning away. “Meet me by the changing rooms.” Soon enough she was alone in a stall, looking at the lock.  
  
It was a small thing. A latch of metal that was there to protect privacy, to ensure the door remained closed to prying eyes. She had turned countless like it absentmindedly, a regular part of any excursion into proper shopping, but this time it felt almost too heavy to move. Twisting the bar would be a commitment to looking at herself, to being just flesh in a box once more.  
  
She closed the door and left the lock open.  
  
The bras fit. That in and of itself wasn’t surprising, but the quality of the fit was odd. Normally she had to shop around a little to get something that felt just right, an activity that could take up an entire day if nothing pressing was on her mind, but these two were comparable to the end results of such an outing rather than her first samples. Luck more than anything else, perhaps, but it certainly simplified matters.  
  
What didn’t was the mirror.  
  
Victoria closed her eyes, took a breath, then slowly turned around. When she opened them, a stranger looked back. It looked like her, vaguely, a clone, but there was enough _off_ that she couldn't make the mistake (not a mistake). The difference of centimeter, millimeters, something smaller, all nearly (only nearly) inconsequential on their own but added up to a feeling of _wrongness_ so deep that it shook her bones (she still found herself stepping either too high or too low from time to time). Dispassionately she cataloged the changes (hair too straight), acknowledged them (legs too slim), and did her best to accept what was there (irises closer to brown than hazel). It was _wrong_ (by just enough) but it was there (always there).  
  
Victoria took another breath, the shuddered. She blinked, eyes dry, and pushed out of the room because she needed space, needed something to focus on, anything else, maybe Sveta would’ve sent a text, if she could just get a second to _breathe_ -  
  
“Victoria.”  
  
She froze.  
  
Ashley was a bold woman. Victoria knew that, intellectually, and occasionally came to appreciate the meaning when the pale woman did things like ‘stare down a team of heroes solo’ or ‘blew a hole in a man’s chest in front of all his allies’. These were all consistent with the idea of Ashley, insofar as they were a part of a woman who would rather bleed out than back down.  
  
On the other hand, there was being bold as a cape, and then there was striding through a store in a corset and panties without a care in the world.  
  
Ashley stepped forward, seeking eye contact. Victoria’s eyes glided off, then down. Black lace, feather-patterned and sheer enough that Victoria was almost more aware of what it hid than if Ashley was naked. A v-neck plunged and plunged and _plunged_ , the material ending just above a pair of hips that could’ve been carved from marble and legs that went on for days. Criss-crossing black ribbon held the fabric shut, begging to be pulled, tested. The final slip of cloth between her legs could’ve been an afterthought, a concession to others made out of pity rather than any real desire to cover up.  
  
“Victoria.” Ashley always used her full name. No substitutions, no dilution, just her at the most pure. “Are you here?” The skin beneath the corset was so pale that it seemed like it was just a shadow that had slipped on and never let go, painting patterns where it lay and turning her into something older, more powerful, and so far out of Victoria’s league that it almost felt like a joke.  
  
Two fingers lay against her jaw, soft as down.  
  
“Victoria.”  
  
Victoria didn’t know what made her lean down that one final inch. What gave inside of her when Ashley embraced her back. What made her hand slip under the cloth, caressing, searching, as Ashley’s tongue flicked across her lips and received entrance. What cried out, hot and wanting, when nails dug into her shoulders and _pushed_ , why she cried out in sorrow as they parted and Ashley took a step back, flushed and heaving.  
  
She did know that her heart was going approximately a million miles a minute, that her cheeks felt like she had been in the sun for hours, and that she had fucked up.  
  
“I’msorryIdidn’taskI’mtheworstI’lljustputonashirtandgothiswasamistakeit’sallmyfaultforsuggestingit-”  
  
“Stop.” The word cut through her panic, refocusing her eyes on the other woman’s white eyes. Slowly, Ashley stepped forward again, this time staying at arm’s length. “Are you here?” she asked, words carefully flat. Victoria nodded, stepping back into the booth.  
  
Ashley didn’t pursue.  
  


* * *

  
  
By the time Victoria was dressed again and (kind of) under control, Ashley was back in her black dress, a new, striped bag in one hand. Neither talked as they paid for their items, nor as they left the now-closing mall, nor on the train to Ashley’s apartment. Cooking dinner was a muted affair, words only exchanged when absolutely necessary, monosyllabic where possible and rushed when not. Eating was equally quiet, just the rhythmic clink of metal on ceramic and gentle sounds of chewing.  
  
Only once they had begun the dishes did the silence break.  
  
“Why?” Ashley asked, rubbing a wine glass clean.  
  
Victoria shook her head, scrubbing at a plate. Mac’n’cheese was easy. Comfortable. It was just a pain to clean up afterwards.  
  
“I see.” Ashley put the glass in a cupboard, far at the back, then selected another. “It was... not unpleasant.”  
  
Victoria placed the plate on the drying rack, then went on to the pan. Normally you were supposed to let it soak in hot, soapy water, but it wasn’t like there was anything pressing to-  
  
A sharp huff. “Must we engage in a farce? Pretend as if it never happened?”  
  
“No.” Victoria dropped the sponge and clutched both sides of the sink. “I screwed up. I’m owning that. Let’s just acknowledge it and-”  
  
Ashley growled, cutting Victoria off. “Do you want to have what was before? To go back in time and decide otherwise than what you did?”  
  
“Yes!” Victoria said, spinning around and glaring. “I’d like to have not molested my friend in public after having an episode, but here we are! I feel like that’s not unreasonable! I. Am. Sorry!”  
  
“Did you enjoy it?” Victoria stopped. Ashley was still polishing a glass, eyes fixed firmly on her own reflection. After a moment she flicked her eyes sideways. “Did you enjoy kissing me?”  
  
Victoria turned away, back to the sink. “It doesn’t matter what I enjoyed, it matters that I started without asking,” She picked up the sponge again. After a moment, “I’m sorry.”  
  
Ashley put away the glass, toweled off her hands, then walked away. “I will be waiting in the living room.”  
  
Victoria took a moment to scream internally, then scrubbed her own hands dry and flew after Ashley.  
  
The other woman was reclining lengthwise on the couch, eyes closed. As soon as Victoria floated into the room, one leg slid up the other, making room.  
  
“You’re welcome to join me,” Ashley said, eyes still closed and hands folded over her chest.  
  
Victoria continued to float.  
  
Ashley sighed, chest and hands rising, then falling. “Do you imagine me stupid?”  
  
Victoria settled into an armchair, one with legs of tangled claw. “No.”  
  
“Do you think I have an inaccurate picture of myself?” Ashley asked dispassionately.  
  
Victoria opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again. “I think on some things you’re a little off.”  
  
“With regards to who I wish to make love to?” Victoria flushed, coughing and turning away. When she looked back Ashley’s eyes were open, unflinching. “Do you think I would lie to you with regards to what I wanted? Would I be anything other than forthright?”  
  
“I think this is rapidly approaching really uncomfortable territory,” Victoria replied, rushing the words, wringing her hands.  
  
“I think I would not,” Ashley continued, unmoving. “I think that confessing interest would be extraordinarily difficult, that it would require a great deal of reciprocated trust, but that when I was ready I would be honest. I think that if I truly objected to something, I could ignore it. If it was not something I could ignore, annihilation.”  
  
Victoria shrank back, bangs falling forward to hide her eyes. “I don’t want to talk about this. Please.”  
  
For a long moment neither talked.  
  
“I also think that I have learned these past few months.” Victoria looked up. Ashley’s eyes were closed, face aimed back at the ceiling. “I’d like to think that I would consider people beside myself when I decide to pursue something, and that I have gained a modicum of respect for the consequence of pride.” She took a breath and for a second Victoria saw exhaustion, bone deep and ancient. “I would like to think that I could recognize when seizing something meant destroying it.”  
  
Victoria stood up from the chair. She looked towards the stairwell. The base really wasn’t so far away. She could be there in less than half an hour and sleeping on a cot, away from everyone. Time to recoup, to repair, to reorganize.  
  
She took a step away.  
  
Then she turned around. Ashley was still laying down, hands slipping from her chest. Victoria bit her lip, the floated over, coming to rest above her, parallel.  
  
“Sorry,” she whispered, cupping Ashley’s face and pressing a kiss to her forehead. “Truly.”  
  
Then Victoria drifted away, leaving Ashley alone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sex happens.

It was 1:47 AM, and Victoria couldn’t sleep.

She’d tried reading, then abandoned it when she caught herself going over the same three lines. She’d tried music, then shut it off when the strings began scraping her nerves raw, the horns transformed into sandpaper for the back of her eyes, and the woodwinds into knives of ceramic and breath. She’d tried the medicine cabinet, looking for melatonin supplements, for cough syrup, for something to quit the bees living in her ear drums and the flickers at the edges of her eyes and the prickly not-numbness that had been growing more and more all night, and nothing safe stood out.

She’d considered picking up her phone, grabbing a vibrator, and trying to find rest after relief, the same way she and Dean had a few times after particularly bad days, then grimaced at the thought of feeling her own hands, the ones that weren’t really her own, or were but were also some proportion cat and dog and rat and mouse and locus and roach and—

Victoria pushed back from the refrigerator, where she knew a half-empty bottle of wine still stood from last week’s dinner party.

_ Drugs don’t change feelings. They amplify them. _

“That’s still a change,” Victoria shot back at the ghost, but half-heartedly. Amplifying any part of herself right now, the restlessness, the lack, the slight lag between motion and the awareness of motion, that magnification sounded like a step deeper into the purgatory-come-hell Victoria had begun to associate with any evening that didn’t have a mission. Her sleep had gotten shorter, gotten worse, in lockstep with the disappearance of all her biggest issues.

**They haven’t disappeared, they’re just in hiding.**

“Shut up, me.”

The apartment stood silent, mocking her with its presence in place of peace.

She walked for a while longer. Back and forth, up and down, examining the bookshelves and couches and blinds and anything at all other than the black door at the end of the hall. Each movement took her closer, took her farther away from the cuts of moonlight on the floor and made her shadow evermore indistinguishable from the dragon’s lair she was approaching.

It took her a cacophony of heartbeats and a wavelength of static to get to the door, and every bit of hollowness in her body to knock.

It took nineteen heartbeats for Victoria to pay the toll. Nineteen heartbeats of trying to pierce the darkness, nineteen heartbeats of half-formed thoughts spiraling off into the void, of incoherence peeling away from the barrier in front of her, of the meaning of the act, of the loss of face/respect/self-respect which would occur moments after waking up in the morning, of  _ whether _ she should lose anything, if it was all in her head and she should stop being such a prude, stop being so fucking  _ damaged _ —

_ knock knock knock _

Victoria lost the time in between the echoes of bone-on-wood and the words, “Come in.”

Ashley did her best to be stunning. She blasted filth off her body every evening, a fool-proof method of hygiene that left her with skin the envy of any model. Her limbs seemed less flesh and more colored glass, slim and more elegant than rapiers, moving with a deliberation and care which Victoria had to assume was the remnants of a time where her ability to annihilate was far less under control. Even under silk, even glowing the moonlight, even as little more than darker-white-on-white under the dead sycamore of Ashley’s nightgown, she seemed to hold the elegance of a monarch, in imitation if not in fact.

This evening, all Victoria wanted was the imitation.

Ashley tilted her head back, the curtain of daffodil strands floating like petals in a stream. “Yes, Victoria?”

Victoria didn’t speak until she was ready. She waited until she’d crossed the room, sat down on the bed, and let the bed adjust to her. She waited for the wrong and butterflies to make peace in her stomach, for the floating sense of fear and anticipation to finish their battle against one another and conclude that  _ yes _ , she wanted this.

Then she spoke.

“I want you to fuck me.”

She could’ve used different words. Euphemism, innuendos, double entendres, each with its own tone and context. ‘Make love’ for something gentle, a Shakespeare quote for something light, any number of half-measures or outright non-sequiturs that would’ve made light of feeling unlike and  _ outside _ of herself, lagging two seconds behind existence, of the phantom limbs that were more than phantoms, of the painful intersection of past, present, and future all at once that would shape her shape/were shaping her/would shape her forevermore into an object for someone else’s gaze, a  _ piece _ of her own mind torn free and molded into  _ love love love love lovelovelovelovelove _ —

Dry lips pressed against Victoria’s neck. “Tell me when to stop.”

Arms hugging her close tightened, then went loose. Fingers began tracing her thighs, soft through the pyjama pants, and Victoria latched onto the sensation of cotton on skin, trying to orient the multitude of herselves towards the sense-perception she  _ hoped _ was real. A faint heartbeat, just behind hers, the scent of clean hair, distinctly free of dirt without the tinge of hospital antiseptics, the softness of skin and lips and one palm beginning to slip under her top—

“Stop.”

The hand left, as did the lips.

“Are you okay?” Ashley asked. She didn’t whisper, didn’t speak too slowly, didn’t treat Victoria like a  _ patient _ to be  _ managed _ , like a  _ toy _ to be  _ played _ with, like something effervescent that would shatter upon the slightest brush with difficulty.

Victoria inhaled, held it, and let go. Maybe she was imagining it, but her aura felt less scattered now. “Yeah. I’m good.” After a pause, “Go.”

The hand returned, tracing hard-earned stomach muscles, nails drifting aimlessly, like razor-thin lines of light cutting through the morning dust. Its sibling joined, bypassing her abdomen entirely and heading straight for the breast, where it found Victoria’s flesh free and wanting. Victoria’s hands tightened into claws, every muscle from the tips of one finger to her elbow to her shoulder to her neck and all the way back down again going tighter than a freshly-tuned piano, then slowly loosening as the first hand kept up its slow, steady knead.

Not soft. Not hard.

She became conscious of where her hands were, of how she’d begun leaning back into Ashley, of how she’d craned her neck to give Ash more room to work with, and how they’d both slowly lowered back down against the covers. She was sucking down, long, deep pulls before raking her teeth over the skin and repeating the whole process over again.

Victoria also became aware of just how thin Ashley’s nightgown really was, and how much of it was beginning to hike up.

_ “Move.” _

Ashley pulled back and twisted, putting Victoria face-down on the bed and breaking contact between the two of them. A rustling of cloth, something white fluttering down at the edge of her vision, and this time when she lay down against Victoria, bare skin touched where Victoria’s own shirt had begun to ride up.

“Clothes,” and this time it  _ was _ a whisper, not meant to protect or coddle or god-forbid  _ convince _ , but to  _ entice _ . An order, backed up by the sanctity of  _ knowing _ that she’d stop, of a grounded, rock-solid  _ honesty _ that made the entire world slide a little more into focus by proximity  _ alone _ .

Victoria’s shirt went the way of the nightgown, and Ashley’s hands had her pants and panties following shortly after.

“Much better.” Now it was full contact, her back to Ashley’s front, legs tingling and arms pulling them closer together. The difference was that Victoria  _ knew _ that the pale limb beginning to massage her sex wasn’t hers (a move made embarrassingly quickly and yet somehow not quickly enough), knew the fingers rolling her nipple weren’t hers, knew that someone else was there and wanting too, each scrape of teeth and almost-too-much stinging and not-deep-enough stroking carving closer and closer to her core, knew that she was the one hand on a thigh corded with muscle and the hands with a death-grip on hair so soft it was like clutching thread spun from snow, knew the exact patterns of how calf met calf in a dance of pale and tan that somehow kept them warm and stable without making her feel trapped  _ at all _ —

Victoria came, and then began coming again when Ashely didn’t stop.


End file.
